Out of thirty-four (34) nationwide submissions, B.S. Statistics students Glenn Ivan D. Macitas, Jace Grant D. Cayot, Arpachshad Panoy, and Francis Yestin V. Javiero proudly claimed victory at the Philippine Statistical Association Inc.'s (PSAI) Best Student Paper Competition.

The team’s research paper entitled, “Mapping COVID-19 Research Publications: A Bibliometric and Topic Modeling Approach,” gathered an audience of statistics enthusiasts and renowned figures from across the nation at the 2024 PSAI Annual Conference. Representing the team, Glenn Ivan Macitas defended their paper, responding to a range of inquiries. In the end, the team received well-deserved recognition and valuable feedback from some of the country’s top minds in statistics.

The paper utilizes text mining techniques to analyze Scopus metadata on COVID-19 and develop a detailed bibliometric analysis.

The paper authors also use Latent Dirichlet Allocation, a Bayesian network, on the abstracts to uncover latent themes in the COVID-19 literature in the Philippines. This paper is part of their requirements in Stat 197 (Statistical Analysis of Text Data), under Prof. Daniel David Pamplona.

The paper goes far beyond being a mere academic requirement—it represents the bright future of statistics in the Philippines, a field that citizens and policymakers will increasingly depend on. It also reflects the team’s remarkable intellect, unwavering dedication, and persistence, all nurtured by the invaluable guidance and support of their peers and professors.

Congratulations to the entire team! Your success is one we all celebrate.

Love, StatSoc